If you are actually asking a serious question: while a patron is primarily motivated by whatever catches his interest, a corporate conglomerate funding the same investments is motivated by profit. They would have more of a motive to select the kind of investments that will succeed and pay for themselves, allowing for a more economically efficient allocation of resources.
Of course, the kind of investments that might succeed and pay for themselves may not necessarily be the kind that is most beneficial to the public at large - but the same applies to the patron.
As you say, conglomerates being profit motivated tend to produce largely uninteresting slop. See the vast majority of the movie industry.
Patrons will produce some very interesting and detailed work but it will not necessarily align with your tastes and there will probably not be all that much of it. European history makes this clear enough (imo).
A system in which individual or very small groups of creators are able to produce work of their own choice that appeals to a small to moderately sized niche of their choosing seems like it should produce the best outcome from the perspective of the typical individual. Fiction books are a decent example of this. We get lots of at least decent quality work because a single author can feasibly produce something "on credit" and recoup the costs after the fact.
Imagine you're asked with building, say, a train network within your country. Domestic regulations demand that, because other countries are not certified up to your country's safety standards, you're not allowed to import any foreign technology from outside your country.
So - in order for you to build that train - you'd need to wait for industries to set up to build every single component up to local standards. And if nobody sets these industries up to manufacture the components you need, you'll have to build it yourself, somehow.
You'd rightfully call this out as protectionism. And the worst part is not even the protectionism - the worst part is that you'll likely get no trains, because in practice nobody except a huge incumbent company can build all the components they need themselves, and huge incumbent companies often have no incentive or no agility to do so.
So you start by asking me to assume the EU can't create IT technology and then give no further argument, much wow! That's was even less persuasive than I expected. BRB, gonna go tell tell Open Office and KDE they don't exist because Europe can't create software.
Most of the basic medical research is funded by tax dollars.
Also, are you sure the bureaucracy isn't exactly the point? If you're too sick to fight off a denial and die, they keep the money.
I think we're subsidizing Wall Street's profits with our garbage system, but the sooner people realize our system is totally failed maybe we can knock it down and do something else.
Economic growth is a measure of how much goods and services are available to everyone. If that isn't improving, that means your quality of life is lower, ceteris paribus. It means you don't produce enough energy on your own are dependent on Russian gas. It means you don't have enough surplus to sustain a military.
I assumed the parent was referring to "GDP growth" which doesn't matter when inflation eats it all and new coins go to megacorps rather than back into society, European standards of living has been consistently improving, especially for the poorer nations.
I can't defend Germany for refusing nuclear in favor of Russian gas, but at the time it seemed to some like a good idea to strengthen relationships through trade and encourage democratization.
It's a damn shame that we're buying Russian gas, it's hilarious that I keep hearing about this from Americans but not Ukrainians.
Yes, it is, that's exactly what it is and it's not up for debate.
Like I said, the rules are stupid but, for now, I play by them.
You might as "why are you hurting yourself?". Because I can afford to hurt myself, the waiter probably can't. 5 bucks is a drop in the bucket for me, but, presumably, not for them.
And, on the topic of self-harm, we all make decisions every day that harm us. We sometimes get something in return, but often we don’t. We do it purely for the benefit of other people, often people we don’t know and will never see again.
Consider holding a door open. For me, I get in the building 10 seconds later. That’s worse than getting in the door 10 seconds earlier. What did I gain? Nothing. Some stranger got 100% of the benefit, with nothing for me.
>> It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel.
> And the US is full of Christo-fascists who believe they have a religious duty to "defend" Israel by any means necessary.
How do you even begin to equivocate this? One wants to destroy a country, one wants to protect it from destruction.
> How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?
Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian - and they've had ample capacity to do. The reverse can't be said to be true. If there's a button that the Iraqi or Palestinian leadership that can press that would wipe out the state of Israel and everyone in it, do you think that they won't press it as fast as they can?
Do you live in a place that has a death cult committing daily acts of violence and killing (against people on both sides of the fence, of both "ethnicities")?
Do you live in a place where billions are spent on offensive weapons (tunnels, rockets) and stolen from donated food aid (as Hamas has been hijacking aid for many years and selling it at profit)?
If you do not, do you have any idea how a group of people (e.g. a society) responds to ongoing violence and threats of violence?
Your dismissive "constant shifting goalposts and lack of self awareness will always startle me" is the mark of someone who sits in an armchair and experiences no threat.
Beware of being dismissive. This region needs people who push for the hard work of peace and avoid labels and dismisiveness.
There was a peace movement in the 1990s. It accomplished a lot (a million+ Palestinians live under a Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza was left to its own devices in 2005).
A death cult (probably two) killed that process. By killing people (including the Israeli Prime Minister). Years earlier, that death cult killed Sadat for his peace making work.
>I don't think "getting invaded" counts as "choosing offensive war".
Do you know what Hamas is?
Do you know their charter?
Do you know that they diverted billions of $, meant to build housing for Gazans to their own pockets and to a huge underground fortress under a civilian population?
Do you know that most Gazans support Hamas, and that Hamas has made many offensive wars against the civilians and armies of both Israel and Egypt? (Hamas killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers running wild in Egyptian Rafah in 2014... Know what Egypt did? Leveled hundreds of housing structures)
Hamas has been in a state of war since the day they took power in Gaza.
Hamas has murdered hundreds of Palestinians, including many who worked for peace.
What do you want to see?
More violence and blood?
Or more peace?
Promote what you want to see.
(Digging out the 100's of miles of offensive tunnels in Gaza is slow slow work. Hamas could end the war any time, but they will never surrender. They will fight to the last Gazan child. Do you want that?)
As an amateur home-cook, I find current LLMs incredibly useful as a sounding board for the on-the-fly recipe modifications - for allergies and food sensitivities, adapting preparation methods to available equipment, or substituting produce not available in season. It may not be able to taste the final product, but its reasoning on what's likely to work (and what isn't) has not led me wrong so far.
Windows actually has a built-in remote assistance tool now called Quick Assist. It provides a simple way to remotely control another Windows machine with user consent, without requiring third-party software. It's preinstalled on Windows 10 and 11—just launch 'Quick Assist' from the Start menu, generate a session code, and connect. While it's not as feature-rich as a full remote desktop solution, it's more than enough for parental IT support.
They're doing this because the expected value on lives saved is positive, not negative.
It's the exact same thing as "defund the police" except applied to the entire government. If policing is net negative, reducing it will save lives. If this government program is inefficient / worthless / net negative, cutting it or disrupting it will save lives.
When you just make stuff up its easy to prove your point, I agree. There's no reason to assume lives get saved because of deregulation, there's no evidence to that, and plenty to its opposition.
I'm not American and haven't done the calculus here. I'm just pointing out that from an outside perspective, what the American right is doing here is +EV in terms of American lives from their point of view, so it's perfectly rational.
If nothing else, the opportunity cost of a few hundred billion saved eventually, even if it's just a small fraction of US total government spending, can be used to save or improve many many many lives.
Hyperbole like "yeah murder more people its good because I can't tell what is good or bad" doesn't help.
Of course, the kind of investments that might succeed and pay for themselves may not necessarily be the kind that is most beneficial to the public at large - but the same applies to the patron.